Won’t you let me take you on a sea cruise?

Posted on February 25, 2015 by missemtoo

After our stopover in Epcot, we were totally stoked to depart on the cruise. GranMary met us at the hotel and we traveled from Orlando to Port Canaveral together, all set for the adventure to begin.

Annie had decided that she wanted to meet (and get autographs from ) as many characters as possible – and so, knowing that we’d have a slight wait at at the terminal, we took full advantage of the opportunity to get a little personal time with Goofy.

GranMary defined the term “good sport” for the entirety of the trip.

We’d elected to get a room with a balcony (actually, by the time we booked this cruise, all rooms except those with balconies were sold out, so it wasn’t much of an “election” but still…). While it’s hardly an essential, we did enjoy being able to hear the ocean and feel the temperature (something that came in quite handy by the end of our trip).

Not quire sure why, but I love this photo.

Nick turned 40 on the second day of the cruise and, as part of the celebration, he requested that we do the meet-the dolphin excursion at the Blue Lagoon while in Nassau, Bahamas. It was, hands down, one of the most incredible experiences any of us has ever had (more on that soon…).

It looks as though we’re shrugging in response to a question, but really, the water was just freakin’ cold.

Thumb war battles on the ferry back from Blue Lagoon.
Why was GranMary the one who got roped into declaring thumb wars? See: GOOD SPORT.

For the remainder of the trip, we simply enjoyed what Disney had to offer – and it was a lot. (I won’t go into everything [you’re welcome], although you can feel free to read a bit more about it here and here.)

We shuffleboarded (is that a verb? If not, it is now)…

GranMary and I lost, but we put up a good fight, I assure you.

We took in numerous ship-board activities…
Cheering babies on during the fastest crawler race.
I’m not kidding.
It was an absolute hoot.

Watching movies while swimming? Yes, please.

We – um, Annie – met characters. And characters. And more characters.

Captain Jack Sparrow took his role very seriously.

It was pretty damn great.

When we returned from last year’s cruise, we said that it was the best vacation ever. And it was. Hence, as excitement mounted for our cruise this year, Nick and I were careful to remind Ella and Annie (and ourselves) that this would be different. Not bad, not at all – but different. It was basically going to be impossible to top, or even match, last year’s experience.

Turns out? We were right.
And you know that? That’s okay.

Something that was way better on this ship: the AquaDuck water slide, which encircles the entire upper decks of the ship. Seriously awesome.
Doing their best princess waves as they passed by…

See, last year, we neeeeeeded that vacation. We’d lost Bill the previous summer and were still emotionally exhausted; I’d started a new job; the girls both took on additional activities which made it hard to find our legs beneath us as our schedules became absolutely nutty; and our winter had started off with ridiculously cold temperatures, meaning that even I – who adore snow and chilly days – was desperate to get warm.

This year, it’s different. We still miss Bill very much, of course – and talk about him often, with tears coming at unexpected times – but the pain is not quite so raw, the roller coaster a little more rounded and not quite so exhausting. My job has remained steady and Nick’s has changed for the better. We’ve grown accustomed to swimming and soccer and after-school craziness – which doesn’t make it less crazy, but makes it unsurprising, so we’re steadier on our feet (although our white boards are used just as often, thank you very much).

The mixology class did not necessarily make us steadier on our feet, but it was absolutely delicious.

And the weather… well. January started off just fine, even nicely. We Rochesterians commented to one another that this was a good winter — not frigid like last year, no huge snowstorms, just a good, even, steady, sunnier-than-usual winter. At least we’re not Boston, hahaha, amIright??

AND THEN CAME FEBRUARY. February, with piles and piles and FREAKING PILES of snow. February, which is already the second-coldest on record (and which, with single-digit temperatures forecasted this week, might become the coldest on record). February, which may be the shortest month of the year but OMG IT SEEMS LIKE IT WILL NEVER END.

If February had come before January, I would have been dragging my frozen butt on that airplane just as maniacally as I’d done last year. But because it hadn’t – because our winter had started off nicely and evenly – none of us was absolutely out of our minds to get someplace warm. (After being home with historically low temperatures, however, we might just storm the airport and try to stow away.)

Which, as luck would have it, was a good thing because this delightful cold front slid right down the eastern coast of the USA, meaning Florida and The Bahamas? Not so warm. Record setting cold in Orlando, as a matter of fact! I even got mild hypothermia while at Castaway Cay!! (There are two exclamation points there which makes it seem like I’m jesting or laughing, but in all seriousness… hypothermia. But that’s another story…)

In addition to being chilly, it was also more than a little overcast and stormy on the day we landed at Castaway Cay…

… which basically meant that we had the snorkeling area to ourselves.

So, the weather was a definite bummer. While we were tremendously grateful to be, you know, on vacation – I won’t go whining about it or anything – it was still a bit of a letdown to miss out on the activities we’d planned (plus, being cold in the Bahamas just feels wrong, yo!). Additionally, high seas and choppy conditions caused most of us, but Ella and me in particular, to become quite seasick – something we hadn’t experienced at all on our previous cruise.

And you know those storied kids clubs that I raved about last year and that the girls couldn’t wait to visit again?? The ones where Ella spent nearly all of her time using the computer bays to write elaborate stories and create digital cartoon thingies? Well, it seems that not all Disney kids clubs are created equal; the ones on this ship didn’t offer the same computer programs (apparently, because our other ship – the Disney Magic – had recently been retrofitted and revamped, they updated their kids club technology). Which meant that Ella didn’t really want to spend time in the clubs. Which… was not awesome.

Also not awesome? The line to meet Elsa and Anna.
I do love how Anna has her hands on her hips, though. Very method.

As such – with the weather, the seasickness, and the change in the clubs – this trip had some hiccups, whereas last year’s had none. (We didn’t help ourselves by going to Epcot for a day this year and not Universal; when you’ve walked a mile in Harry Potter‘s shoes, almost nothing else can live up to that hype.) It’s difficult – impossible, really – to compete with perfection.

Thankfully, we didn’t need to enter that competition because we didn’t need this vacation in the same way we did a year ago. It could just be exactly what it was – fantastic.

If anything, the bumps in the road (the waves on the sea? How far can I stretch this metaphor?) showed us that last year wasn’t just a fluke: we really do love Disney cruises, even when things don’t always go as planned. It was particularly neat to be able to share this year’s experience with GranMary – to laugh with her while we watched the girls zoom in and out of the pools, to stifle groans as we waited in line to meet the princesses (GranMary helps the time pass by much more quickly!), to see her come waaaay out of her comfort zone time and time again (let’s just say that dressing as a pirate and kissing a dolphin on the lips are not usually part of GranMary’s routine), to watch as she and Ella and Annie sang and hugged and took in every moment of vacation and joy and fun.
Although she is very convincing here, I can assure you that Mary does not typically “arrr!” like a pirate.

As I sit here listening to the dripping of the icicles inside our front door (no, for real, inside the door; when all of this begins its meltdown [because, for the love of all things holy, IT MUST MELT AT SOME POINT, right??] it’s not going to be pretty), squinting as the sunlight reflects off the feet of snow in the backyard (but at least it’s sunny!!), the memories of our trip seem that much sweeter.

Even without this doozy of a winter, however, the trip would stand on its own. How fantastically lucky we were to have taken it!

Pirate night, me hearties!

We Soared; aka Epcot in a Day

Posted on February 23, 2015 by missemtoo

So, hi there! Long time no see!

I could try to make excuses about not writing, but really we were simply out of town, so there was no writing during that time, and before that I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off getting ready to go out of town.

Woe is me. I know. I’ll just stop there.

Like last year, we went to Florida and on a Disney Cruise… and, like last year, it was fantastic.

That time, it was the Magic – this time, we sailed on the Dream.

Before we got there, however, we made a detour to Epcot in Walt Disney World (Nick’s and my favorite Disney park – and, we figured, a relatively easy one to “do” in only one day without running ourselves ragged). YOU KNOW YOU ARE EXCITED FOR A PLAY BY PLAY OF OUR VACATION. Get ready, folks.

Because I’m a bit of a Disney ~~freak~~ fanatic, I knew that we’d need to arrive early if we wanted to do our very favorite ride, Soarin’, without waiting in a ridiculously long line (we already had FastPasses for TestTrack but couldn’t double-book two “top tier” attractions, so Soarin’ had to be a walk-on). Good sports that they are (and not wanting to wait in an interminably long line; their mama didn’t raise no dummies), the rest of the fam agreed – and so we greeted the Epcot gates prior to the park even opening.

Oh, what a beautiful morning!
That’s Spaceship Earth peeking out behind us…

My ~~evil plan~~ thoughtful preparations worked: we walked right on Soarin’, and Nick and Ella even got to ride it again with hardly any wait at all. Score!

Truly the most perfect way to start a day…
By 45 minutes after the park opened, the wait for this ride was over an hour. THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE WORM, FOLKS. Or at least two no-wait rides.

When my three housemates had okayed my early morning plan, they’d done so in part because I’d promised that, once we’d finished with Soarin’, we’d be free to just wander the park and take things in at a leisurely pace – something we rarely, if ever, have the time to do when we actually visit WDW for any length of time. But this time, we did – ambling through The Land pavilion (where Soarin’ is housed), riding one of the other rides, spending a looong time at the aquarium tanks there (we’ve never taken that opportunity before; it was refreshing and lovely).

I love this photo of the girls and the sea turtle.

We rode rides when the mood struck. We had a relaxing breakfast. We shopped (picking up the Mickey ears that Nick thought were merely to surprise GranMary, who would be joining us for the cruise; they were – but the girls and I had a master plan to get him a special, surprise set of ears for his 40th birthday occurring two days later…).

At last, our TestTrack FastPass time arrived, so we headed over and were through with the line and the ride in less than twenty minutes.

Ready to ride!

This is really a terrible shot – I snapped it with my phone off of a computer screen after the ride’s end – but I love it for Ella’s absolutely giddy face.

With our Future World dreams fulfilled, we grabbed a bit to eat at a couple of the pavilions in the World Showcase. Eleanor was beyond thrilled to stand inside the phone booths at the United Kingdom pavilion… JUST LIKE IN HARRY POTTER OMG.

‘Ello, guv’na!
(Is that really a thing? Did I just offend all of Britain?)

She also insisted on shadowing me as I shopped in the UK pavilion specifically so she could listen to everyone’s accent (“They sound like they’re in the movies!”) and read the names of their hometowns (“That man is from Oxford! THAT’S WHERE EMMA WATSON IS FROM!!”). At last, hot and tired from walking, we walked back to our hotel, which – mercifully – was situated right outside of Epcot.

Truth be told, by late afternoon the pool was a bit chilly, but the girls loved splashing and running in the sand and Nick and I loved sitting idly beside the pool, beverages in hand.

Adding to our enjoyment was the moment when I checked my phone and discovered that it felt like 75* by the pool… and -21* back home. For those of you bad at The Math (like me), that’s nearly a 100 DEGREE DIFFERENCE, y’all. ONE. HUNDRED. DEGREES. We could not even wrap our brains around that absolute insanity, but we certainly appreciated our breezy, sunny afternoon by the pool, let me tell you.

That night, as planned, we headed back over to Epcot to take a tour around the world for dinner. This is one of Nick’s and my most cherished rituals – grabbing a bite to eat at the various “countries,” poking through the shops, trying the drinks. As people who have yet to truly travel the world but who would absolutely love to, there’s something wonderfully satisfying about Epcot’s World Showcase; we couldn’t wait to share it with the girls.

Alas, as we’d feared, they’re a bit young yet to really appreciate it (“Do we have to walk all the way to China? What’s so special about Norway? Can’t we just eat caramel corn at home?”), and by that time Ella had developed a killer headache (for which she refused to take any medication, so our sympathies largely went out the window; we are excellent parents), so it wasn’t really the blissful Around The World experience we’d hoped for.

Still, it was a beautiful night. We ate ourselves silly. The caramel corn really is that good. (And, best of all, Nick had a brilliant idea: to celebrate my 40th birthday this fall, he and I will come back to Epcot for a day to attend the annual Food and Wine festival – HOLLA!!) We went to bed exhausted, slightly cranky, but overall happy and extremely excited for the cruise to come.

(No, I won’t go into that part here; this post is long enough, don’t you think?
Besides, who doesn’t enjoy reading several blogs’ worth about someone else’s vacation?? Stay tuned…)

You know you live in a snow belt when…

Posted on February 7, 2015 by missemtoo

On Wednesday, I volunteered as a Parent on the Playground at my daughters’ school (which essentially amounts to being a referee for ninety minutes). There was snow up to my knees as far as the eye could see and the students had been prohibited from actually using the playground equipment (too slippery to navigate in bulky snow gear) or throwing snowballs (a byproduct of today’s Safety First! approach to childhood), but that didn’t stop the kids from racing around like maniacs, trudging through snow as deep as their thighs, building forts and snow piles, gleefully throwing themselves to the ground both forward and backward (because neither hurts when there’s enough snow to cushion the blow), burying their friends up to their chins in fluffy white goodness, and challenging one another to see how far they could plunge their heads downward before succumbing to the cold.

Supposedly, this is fun…

To be sure, these are the types of games that all children would play if sent out for recess when there’s a crap-ton of snow on the ground; these kiddos are not unique in this respect. But, as I watched them traverse the snowbanks, tug their mittens on and off, and zip in and out of their snow gear quickly enough that no class was late for recess or lunch, it occurred to me that these youngsters don’t treat playing in the snow as a novelty; no, they are experts at it.

Living in Western New York, we are part of region that annually sees the most snow of any metropolitan area in the nation. Add to that the fact that we also experience a great deal of lake effect snow (that same stuff that drowned Buffalo in up to SEVEN FEET of snow in November) and, well… we know snow. Admittedly, we rarely get dumped on the way that Boston and the northeast have recently – our snow typically comes bit by bit and adds up over time – but still, we are super tight with Old Man Winter.

Nick and I have lived in Denver, which certainly sees its share of snow, and Nick grew up in Minnesota, which is known for its winters – so we are not strangers to frozen precipitation. But, after being completely flummoxed throughout most of our first couple of winters in Rochester seven years ago (It’s snowing!! It’s snowing!! OMG it’s snowing! Will you be able to get to work? How much will we get? Why are the forecasters so nonchalant? Why is nobody panicking? Why does no one care? People! It’s snowing!), I’ve come to learn that life in a snow belt is just a little different from other places. Snow is a way of being, woven into our culture in ways that just don’t happen when you get snow here and there (even in large amounts) rather than almost daily (24 out of 31 days in January alone).

And so, in thinking about those kids on the playground and how, unlike me, they know nothing else, I began to consider just how living in a snow belt – whether it’s Western New York or Northeastern Pennsylvania or Maine or Alaska or higher elevations in Arizona – is its own, special thing. To wit…

~~~~~~

YOU KNOW YOU LIVE IN A SNOW BELT WHEN…
(in no particular order)…

1) It’s considered an annual romantic gesture every Thanksgiving weekend when your spouse makes sure you’ve got an ice scraper/snow brush in the car.

2) You don’t take that snow brush out of your car until mid-May.*

3) You can use a four-wheel-drive vehicle year-round… for the snow and ice in the winter and for the potholes in the summer.*

4) Children learn to put on their own snow gear – including the “tricks” for tucking mittens into coat sleeves and making sure the inner lining of the snow pants properly covers the boots – before they are potty trained (this does not mean that they actually dress themselves, nor that doing so is anything other than a production… but they know how.)

5) Your neighbors use their snowblower to create a path for your kids to use so that they can more easily walk to school.

6) You have an opinion on salting versus sanding and a well-honed, definitive shoveling strategy; you will silently eye neighbors who approach their driveways and sidewalks differently than you.

7) You receive a reminder from your child’s elementary school that appropriate snow gear is necessary every day because, unless the temperature is below 13*F, it’s raining, or the wind chill makes it feel like -10, the students will have outdoor recess.

8) You have mastered the art of smooshing snow onto your car’s headlights, license plates, and rear window as a way of wiping off the perma-salt.

9) You buy your daughter a beautiful Easter dress for tradition’s sake but know that it will likely never see the light of day; under that bulky winter coat, she could be wearing a potato sack — only you know the truth!*

10) Your employer – the largest in the region – sends an email to all staff asking that they bring shovels to work with them since they never plan on closing when there is inclement weather and they cannot guarantee you won’t need to shovel yourself out due to snowfall.*

11) You give up fighting the chalky white salt stains that decorate your shoes and jackets.

It gives them character.

12) There’s no reason to bother checking for school closings or delays because they pretty much never happen.*

13) You carefully construct your child’s Halloween costume to make sure that heavy layers can go under it… or you simply assume that it will be completely covered by a coat and maybe snow boots.

14) You have serious doubts about the ability of your softball season to start on time… on May 1st.*

15) In discussions about the likelihood of a snow day, a friend declares – without a hint of irony – that she doubts school will close because, “It’s only supposed to snow 10 inches.”

16) There are debates about how many seasons your region actually has. Two? (Winter and construction/pothole season… Winter and summer…) Four? (Before-winter, winter, after-winter, and July 17th…) Five? (Spring, summer, fall, winter, and mud season…)*

17) Even pre-schoolers know one of the most important questions to ask about a snowfall: Is it packing snow or not??

18) You can’t help but chuckle at the national meteorologists as they warn about the latest “Snowpocalypse” or get blown into a slushy puddle while dramatically demonstrating just how treacherous the conditions are. (Sure, logically you understand that if a region isn’t accustomed to snow and doesn’t have enough equipment to clear things up quickly, it can be a disaster [likewise, everyone you know would positively melt if temperatures soared above 90*F in June – unthinkable!]. And, yeah, two storms that dump a couple of feet of snow at a time… in a one week stretch… would make for a helluva lot of snow no matter where you live…)
But still? You find the hysteria hysterical.*

19) You can sleep in a little bit later from December through March because your morning routine has shortened; why bother fixing your hair when it will just be wet/ icy/ flattened by a hat/ covered with a hood, anyway?

20) Except you can’t actually sleep later. Because shoveling. Because of course your employer will expect you to arrive on time and the school buses will be running on schedule, regardless of the five new inches of new snow on the ground.

21) You can take a break from any kind of yard care, however, because you won’t see the ground for at least four months.

The dog can’t find his ball, either, but that doesn’t stop him from plunging his head into the snow as though he is looking for it beneath the surface of a pond.
Note: Labs are built for WNY winters. Smaller dogs will require that you shovel before they can do their business.*

22) As soon as the temperatures hit 40*F, virtually every child in the neighborhood can be seen playing outside… in short sleeves.

23) There’s never a run on bread and milk before a storm because no one’s terribly worried that they’ll get snowed in.

24) You can practically determine the date by the size of the snowbanks lining the sidewalks. “Calf-high? Almost time for Christmas!” “Up to my waist? Must be early February.”

25) You think of wading through snow up to your knees on playground duty as your exercise for the day.

26) Large, blackish mounds of snow remain in parking lots well into “spring.”

27) You appreciate spring and summer more than anyone else, anywhere, ever.

~~~~~~

Don’t get me wrong – I love living here, even with its snow insanity. I’m also not trying to diss other wintery areas where people know cold (hi, Twin Cities!). But there’s no denying that living in a super-snowy place has its own… peculiarities.

With that said, if we do manage to have another snow day on Monday and my girls miss five consecutive school Mondays, “peculiarities” may not be the word I’ll choose… But for today, come on over! The snow is fine!

* taken almost word-for-word off Facebook from my friends HWK, MGD, PCS, MK, SRW, AML, SLR, CB, and MLM, respectively. Thanks, all!

We Bought It

Posted on January 27, 2015 by missemtoo

To school, or not to school… That was the question.

For the past two days, both Annie and Ella have been home, sick… but it was that kind of sick where you wonder if they’re pulling early Ferris Buellers on you or if they’re really down and out enough to stay home.

Don’t get me wrong – I would not wish serious illness on either of my children – but when that temperature rises over 100*F or there’s vomiting going on, at least you can be sure of whether or not they really need to stay home. Other times – like these past couple of days – it’s a lot more nebulous.

On Friday, Annie began showing signs that she was coming down with something. As we went out that night with a few other friends and their moms, I told them that I suspected that Annie’s cough was more than just an annoyance. Sure enough, 36 hours later we found ourselves in our pediatrician’s office during their Sunday morning emergency visiting hours with a diagnosis of bronchitis (or possibly walking pneumonia).

Y’all, Annie was miserable. There were times when she coughed so hard and so uncontrollably that I was actually worried she might break something. Two inhalers, Delsym doses, Benadryl, pain relievers, honey, tea, and Vicks VapoRub did almost nothing to alleviate her symptoms. The poor girl was coughing too much to sleep; after crawling into my bed at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning following a horrible night, she caught only an hour of fitful sleep before awakening and rushing to the bathroom to be sick. She coughed so much and so violently during the day, she became totally exhausted; she physically hurt. We knew she wouldn’t be in school on Monday.

Little sleep on Saturday night leads to napping on Sunday.

{Side note: is coughing not the absolute worst? I mean, it’s not quite plague or pestilence or freakin’ measles (I can’t even begin to get into that whole fiasco; the selfishness of these people completely astounds me), but coughing is an enormous pain in the ass. I hate coughing, I hate coughs, and I hate listening to people cough. Mark my words: the person who develops a cure or an effective treatment for your plain old run-of-the-mill cough will become a gazillionaire. Or at least be Time‘s Person of the Year.}

Ella, by contrast, did not have anything so easily diagnosed. Her throat hurt and her nose was crazy stuffed but the pediatrician confirmed that it didn’t look like strep; lack of a fever or any other strep symptoms all point to a regular head cold. Colds are tricky, though; like prairie dogs or TV shows on Nick Jr, they’re deceptive – one moment, you think they’re harmless, and the next they’re destroying your lawn, causing your children to speak in nonsensical and exceedingly annoying catchphrases, and making your nose run so much you go through an entire box of tissues.

When I picked up Annie’s antibiotics on Sunday, I decided to stock up on any and all accoutrements we might need to get the girls through the next few days. The pharmacist asked if I was purchasing the entire OTC aisle; I said I was and he agreed it was wise.

Yesterday morning, Eleanor bemoaned her achy throat and can’t-breathe nose but, without a telltale fever or spreading rash or oozy eyes, Nick and I couldn’t really see any reason not to send her to school; just not feeling good is hard to quantify and even harder to use as a definitive get-out-of-school-free card. We told her that we believed in her – she would be okay! Ibuprofen and kids’ generic Cold And Sinus medication would help her out! – but if she really felt awful, she could go to the nurse and have her call me (I’d be home with Annie, after all) and I’d go and get her.

When the phone rang at 10:08 a.m., I knew immediately what was up.

Admittedly, she didn’t look so good; she was droopy and her eyes just looked off. For the rest of the day, while Annie hacked up a lung and essentially went on a hunger strike, we three lounged around the living room — watching TV (we expunged NBC’s live version of “Peter Pan” from our DVR where it had been lying in wait since early December), using iPads, reading books, listening to audio books, playing games. When I texted Nick to tell him that Ella was coming home, he asked if I needed him to leave work to help – I told him that I appreciated the offer, but the girls really weren’t that sick and I had plenty of things around the house to keep me busy, so I’d be fine.

FAMOUS LAST WORDS.

Oh, I mean I was fine. It was well and truly fine, really. But those things to keep me busy? BWAHAHAHA. I did manage to do everyone’s laundry and send out a couple of necessary emails, but otherwise… NADA. The least productive home day of all time . I don’t know what kind of vortex pulled me into the living room and onto the couch next to the girls – maybe some weird sort of mostly-sick kid voodoo? – but I accomplished basically nothing except emptying garbage cans when they overflowed with tissues.

By the time Nick arrived home at 5:00 so that I could go to the grocery store, I felt like I was seeing daylight for the first time after a prison sentence. Or maybe leaving the theater after viewing Titanic. Given that Ella and Annie remained fever-free yesterday, I held *very* high hopes that they would return to school today.

This was basically ALL DAY yesterday. Note that the laundry in the basket to the left is folded. BOO YAH.

Okay, wait. That’s true, but there’s a caveat.
I did hold high hopes that they would return to school this morning, but last night there was a not-so-small part of me that kind of hoped they would be home again today solely so that I wouldn’t have to pack either of them a lunch.

Yep. Packing lunches is so odious, I would (almost) rather that the girls stay home sick just to avoid it. IT HAS COME TO THIS.

Nick and I agreed that Annie should probably remain home for at least a couple of hours this morning; the last few days, she has sounded so awful after awakening, you’d think she’d escaped from the TB ward. I thought that Ella, on the other hand, was destined for school… until I saw her this morning and she looked even droopier than she had yesterday.

When I asked her how she felt compared to the day before, she said she felt the same – or worse – but definitely not better. Meaning that if we opted to send her to school anyway, she would likely just wind up in the nurse’s office again and ’round and ’round we’d go. SO THEY WERE BOTH HOME AGAIN TODAY but with fingers very crossed that they’d return this afternoon. Alas, by lunchtime – the witching hour in terms of taking Annie to class – both girls said they just felt so tired, they didn’t think they could go to school.

Cue the tiny violins.

I don’t think I’m a sucker. I run a pretty tight Don’t-Take-Any-Sh*t ship. But damned if I didn’t feel like I was being played by these little hooligans!

It also wasn’t quite as simple as, We’ll just stay home and cozy until you both feel hunky dory, the three of us looking lovingly at one another in the living room – thank goodness there’s nothing else going on! Because I teach piano on Tuesdays. And our awesome babysitter comes and watches the girls. And the students come to the house (where the bronchitis and super-cold germs have been marinating). And tonight we were supposed to have my grandmother over for dinner – which, in itself, was a raincheck from Sunday when Annie was first diagnosed.

This is the chapter of the parenting manual that is missing. (It’s entirely possible I ripped it out one night while tiny baby Ella was up screaming because we hadn’t yet figured out that she was lactose intolerant and I kept trying make her feel better by nursing her after I’d consumed heaps of the frozen lasagnas and creamy chicken casseroles I’d dutifully prepped before her birth.) How do you make these decisions? How do you know when your kid is really “sick enough” to stay home, when it isn’t cut and dried? How much do outside factors – job, babysitter, determining just how germ-infested your house really is and if it’s okay for piano students to be in it, desperately wanting to see your grandma but desperately not wanting to potentially give her bronchitis or a cold – come into play? What about missed school days? And how do we weigh in Ella’s chorus concert tomorrow (and missed practices yesterday and today)?

My view for much of today: coffee table (clean!), vaseline for chapped lips, thermometer, tea, TV remote, and a tissue box to which the girls have taped a dirty tissue bag. So industrious, they are.

On the other hand… when it comes down to it, if the kids are sick, they’re sick – period, the end. I mean, how the heck was I supposed to argue with, I don’t have the energy to go to school and I feel the same as I did yesterday… when you decided I should stay home ? Sure, I could have forced them to go in – even refused to pick them up should the nurse call – so that I could teach piano and see my grandma… but in the end, what would it get me? Daughters who don’t trust that their mom is in their corner, who think their mother doesn’t believe them when they say they feel like crap? Teachers who looked sideways at my potentially ill offspring? At few hours of sanity?

Okay. That last part was seriously tempting.

In the end, we felt that, since they haven’t played this card before (that we know of), we needed to listen to them; they stayed home. I cancelled the babysitter and the piano lessons. Nick and I decided, if we didn’t think it wise for anyone else to be around the girls, that it would be really dubious to ask my grandmother over for dinner — we will take (another) raincheck.

And so it was that the girls and I spent another day at home, cozied up against the winter chill and snow (although not the blizzard that much of the Northeast received) – a sort-of snow day that was not a snow day. (Annie did ask if she could go sledding; that request was quickly nixed seeing how sick she was and all.) There was still television watching and iPad using and book reading, but there was also working out (OH MY HECK I AM SORE), cleaning, photo sorting, and cooking – so it was certainly more productive than yesterday.

I will say, however, that shoveling the ice rink – the only occasion I left the house all day – was just about the most glorious experience of ever.

Well, that and having Annie try to explain that her knees hurt when she walked because the doctor said she had walking ammonia.

And Ella finally getting around to reading some of the books that she hadn’t had time for.

As of right now, we are definitely a go to send the girls to school tomorrow. They’ve steadily felt better all day and, given the general level of tomfoolery that they’ve engaged in, I think they’re both as stir crazy as I am to get the heck out of dodge and back to their routine.

Maybe best of all, because Wednesday is much-beloved pizza day, I DO NOT HAVE TO MAKE ANY LUNCHES TONIGHT EITHER — can I get an amen!

Once the girls are off and running, and after I’ve attended the yearbook meeting, taken photos of the school’s choruses, and climbed a monstrously tall ladder to take photos of every fifth grade homeroom (with the students formed into the numbers 2-0-1-5; it’s as brutal as it sounds – send good vibes, please) — but before Ella’s chorus concert tomorrow night — I plan to sit down with that parenting manual to see what we might have done differently, ’cause this stuff is hard. If you’ve got the missing chapter, I’m all ears.

Given our recent Clean Eating push, I’ve been almost entirely avoiding alcohol since New Year’s – but tonight? Tonight I had a glass and I AM NOT SAD about it. (The goblet was a Christmas present from one of my aunts. It is plastic and largely unbreakable and awesome.)

Throwback Thursday – Grandpa’s Hats

Posted on January 22, 2015 by missemtoo

For a good many years now, at the urging/request of my grandmother, my mom’s side of the family has created personalized calendars that are given out at Christmas. In addition to the usual calendar fare, Shutterfly allows us to place photos on any dates we’d like, meaning that each family member’s face triumphantly appears on his or her birthday.

While I’ve always enjoyed the calendar, Ella and Annie took a particular shine to it this year, delighting in each person’s photo and commenting on which months receive the heaviest birthday traffic. (I printed off photos for the members of Nick’s family, too, and stuck them on the corresponding squares; June, December, and January are particularly heavily-birthdayed months.)

They were particularly smitten with the weeks when several people have birthdays in a row (and the coincidental dates when people actually share birthdays, something you’d think wouldn’t happen all that often in a relatively small family because there are 365 days on which to have been born), with these last two weeks in January being the first of the clusters.

“Mom – Alex’s (their cousin) birthday was Tuesday, Grandma’s birthday was yesterday, and Lisa’s (my aunt) and Adam’s (my cousin) birthdays are next week! That’s crazy!”

It is! But it’s actually even crazier.

———————————-

My grandfather loved hats. He would have laughed mischievously at the thought of me calling him a connoisseur of hats – that’s a bit of a stretch – but he certainly enjoyed them. Baseball caps, cowboy hats, visors, woven ones with wide floppy brims, straw hats, light-up headpieces with glowing lettering across the front… you name it, he had one.

Ever true to his creative, do-it-yourself-but-kind-of-on-the-cheap nature, he had nailed flat pieces of wood to the dining room walls at the lake, on top of which he’d attached clothespins – each of which held a member of the hat collection. Although this newfangled storage system appeared in the later years of his life, the hats themselves were around for much longer. I remember playing with them as a little girl, fascinated with their feel on my head and the way they smelled like him. (Not an Old Spice kind of smell – more musty and fisherman-y and turpentine-y — but grandpa through and through.)

Summer 1977; one of my all-time favorite photos of anything, ever.
Would that every child could be looked at by their grandparent like this.

In the summers before the old lake house was razed and the new one was constructed – the last two summers of my grandfather’s life – Ella and Annie, too, became unofficial members of Great‘s Hat Club. It gave me such a kick to see them wearing his caps and seeing them all enjoy one another’s company so much. I only wish that they remembered it – remembered him – as clearly as I do.

Ella, at the same age I was in the above photo, wearing one of Great’s hats.
His avant-garde hat holder is clearly visible in the background…

Annie – seven months – with my aunt Lisa, joining in on the hat convention.

————————————–

While sorting through things in the basement (let us all share a moment of silence for this miraculous occasion, shall we….?), I came across the hat my grandfather had worn when he was in the Navy. He didn’t talk with me much about his days in the service – then again, I hadn’t really asked (something I regret deeply now) – so I don’t really have much of a frame of reference for this regal topper, but it makes me smile each time I see it, imagining bygone days when my grandfather piloted planes that scanned the ocean for German U-boats, when he and my grandmother exchanged letters and television hadn’t been invented. Plus, all these years and miles later, that hat still smells like my grandpa.

———————————–

See, it wasn’t just Grandma and her sister who have birthdays in January – Great did, too.

“He did? I can’t believe it!”

Yep. HIs birthday was today, actually. January 22nd, 1921.

“So how old would he be?”

I see that you don’t get along so well with The Math either.

“What?”

Never mind. He would have turned 94 today.

“We should put his picture on the calendar!”

Long before Photoshop became popular, my grandfather loved toying with photos on his computer, swapping family faces and chuckling at his exploits. As soon as I get the chance, I’m definitely going to print out his photo and put it on the calendar. It’s kind of creepy… but Great would totally have approved.

This house is clean

Posted on January 21, 2015 by missemtoo

(Please tell me I’m not the only one who totally hears that woman’s creepy voice from Poltergeist when you read those words.
Also, the house isn’t clean yet. DON’T BE RIDICULOUS.)

When I say that we go all out for the holidays, I mean it in every way possible, especially with food. And drinks. And more food. I’d love to say that I’m one of those people who is able to effectively moderate exactly what goes in my mouth between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, but with honesty being the best policy and all, I can’t.

Usually, I don’t mind. Without getting into the gory (or, more specifically, boring) details, I will say that I’m generally a pretty healthy person. I’m mindful of my diet but I don’t actually diet and I am strong and (more or less) fit. Because of this, I don’t normally sweat what I eat in December ’cause I know it will balance itself out in the end.

This year, it did balance itself out… but it balanced out on my end. Throughout autumn, I’d noticed that my pants were getting tighter – nothing monumental, but a little more snug. I told myself that, once the holidays were over and I was eating my usual fare and exercising my usual amount, everything would be good again. But when the waistband of my pants actually began to hurt, I knew that just “going back to normal” might not be enough. The pounds had packed on so slowly, a subtle adjustment was unlikely to make much of a difference.

Simply put, I felt gross. I was uncomfortable. Yes, I want to make long-term lifestyle changes to what I’m eating, but I also wanted to jumpstart the year with a more radical change so that I could, quite literally, be happy in my own skin again.

Nick, too, was feeling pretty blech after the holidays, so we decided to do something together to kick ourselves into gear. Having completed the disastrous juice cleanse last year that left us both feeling like angry, starving lunatics, we knew that pure juicing was out of the question… but we liked the idea of a strict eating regimen aimed at removing the extra crap from our systems and putting in only good stuff. Just without the rage. And all the juice.

Long story short, after some research, we decided to go for a ten day cleanse that combined aspects of the Reboot Lite plan (I appreciate how it tries to let us off the hook by saying that this reboot is good for people for whom straight-up juicing isn’t right, “maybe due to health issues or a rigorous workout routine”… or maybe because JUICING MADE ME A BITTER, MURDEROUS HAG) and the 21-day cleanse that is outlined in Kris Carr’s Crazy Sexy Diet book (we condensed it into ten days and didn’t fast at all, but whatever).

More specifically: fresh fruit and vegetable juices, smoothies, veggies, fruits, nuts, beans, and certain grains (quinoa, brown and wild rice, lentils) were in. Dairy, meats, sugar, breads, carbs, anything processed, any beverages other than water and herbal tea, and basically all other foods were out.

PARTY ON, AMIRIGHT??

I’m sure, to many, this sounds like pure torture. Before the juice cleanse, I probably would have said the same – but after that week from hell, even Nick agreed that this looked like a veritable smorgasbord. We also knew that we really wanted this; we wanted to feel better. We wanted to stop craving foods we knew weren’t good for us, to stop eating so much, to get a head start on a healthier lifestyle, so we felt pretty darned motivated to see this through.

And you know what? It really wasn’t bad at all. We were “allowed” to eat plenty of food, so we never really felt hungry. Just as importantly, the food tasted really good and completely filled us up — and not merely acceptable-for-a-cleanse food, either, but recipes that we’ll happily turn to again now that the ten days are up.

(For the record: I have discovered that I can’t get enough avocado or quinoa. I could eat them both every single day maybe for the rest of my life. Sweet potatoes and kale, on the other hand, start off well but don’t feel as good by day ten.)

Best of all, the cleanse did what we’d hoped it would. We became full much faster, meaning that we were no longer consuming too-big portions. I “reset” my sweet tooth so that almonds and dried cherries satisfied my desire for something to chew after dinner, rather than a handful of chocolate chips. I lost around five pounds and, even better, my pants finally fit comfortably again.

To be fair, this cleanse thing wasn’t without its drawbacks. Planning for it – what meals we’d eat and when, making the grocery list, making sure we had the necessary tools – took hours upon hours because I refused to have us consume the same thing day in and day out. Groceries were monstrously expensive because purchasing enough fruits and veggies to juice and to eat costs an arm and a leg. Also, when you’re consuming heaps of fresh produce, it runs out fairly quickly, so I made four trips to the grocery store in ten measly days.

Hardest of all, the girls weren’t participating in the cleanse but they still needed to, you know, eat, so I wound up preparing three separate breakfasts and lunches (one for Nick and me and one each for Annie and Ella because do you think they could possibly agree on a single breakfast or lunch choice? OF COURSE NOT) and two different dinners every single day. Nick helped as often as he could, but I was still in the kitchen – chopping and dicing and peeling, juicing, blending, cooking, cleaning, dismantling, doling out into containers, washing Tupperware, etc. – for two-and-a-half to three hours every day.

Just *some* of the dishes, pots, bowls, etc., required to do all of the peeling, juicing, blending, cooking, cleaning, dismantling, and doling out into containers. Every night, for ten nights. Not pictured: the freakin’ juicer.

Three hours in the kitchen is way too long to not come away with at least one batch of brownies or a glass of wine, y’all.

So, it wasn’t really the most practical of “diets” because I absolutely cannot devote that much time to food prep day in and day out. For ten days, though? It was doable.

I’d planned to come off of the cleanse very gradually, easing back into some of the foods we’d been avoiding (hello, Starbucks)… but, as luck would have it, the culinary arts center that’s only 30 minutes from our house was offering a gluten free baking class on the ninth day of the cleanse, and I had a gift certificate to the center that was begging to be used, and Nick could stay home with the girls because it was a Sunday so…

Really, there was no other choice. I was practically obligated to attend.

The baking was a blast and the recipes were spot-on, but – to both my delight and my frustration – I quickly learned that I was not able to consume the fabulous goodies that we’d prepared in class. I don’t mean that I didn’t want to (oh, I wanted to!), but that I couldn’t: after eating just two bites of the quiche and one bite of pizza, I was so stuffed, I felt sick to my stomach. Over the course of the week, the girls and I slowly made our way through the bounty and all was well, but it definitely felt strange to become so full after eating just one baked good.

A small portion of the delectable spread that awaited us after class…
From left: pizza, quiche Lorraine, pumpkin whoopee pies (OMG SO GOOD), chocolate-covered macaroons, and flourless chocolate chip cookies.

Additionally, in back: double chocolate brownie, lemon poppyseed muffin, English muffin.

I had so many leftovers from the baking class, I needed four to-go containers.

This past weekend was our ultimate test when we went away for two nights with some of our best friends and their children. Although, by that time, Nick and I had introduced meat and dairy back into our diets, we’d kept our portion sizes reasonable and snacking to a minimum. By contrast, each night that we were away, we deliberately chose to throw caution to the wind and eat whatever we damn well pleased – pasta and burgers and cheese and wine and beer and dessert. We did become full more quickly than we would have, say, a month ago so we didn’t really eat all that much, but still – it was more than we had been eating, and it was certainly food that would be considered “unhealthy.”

The good and the bad news is that it caught up with us big time, sending both of our stomachs into knots, causing tremendous pain and discomfort, and costing us a lot of time in, um, the bathroom. Apparently, we did such a good job shocking our systems back into order that, upon being fed the “wrong” food, they revolted. Which is neat, in that the cleanse obviously worked and now it’s pretty clear what constitutes “good” food — but which also sucks because if I want to eat a piece of cake, damn it, I’m a grown-up and I don’t need my body giving me hell for it. (Likewise, darling offspring, I do not need to be accused of “using drugs” each time I pour a glass of pinot . Thanks, D.A.R.E.)

So, here we are – post-cleanse, feeling better, knowing that eating poorly will result in feeling poorly, but also seeing that the level of diligence (and amount of produce) we’d been maintaining isn’t possible long-term. Hence, we’ve decided to compromise and… wait for it… eat better. Crazy, I know. But, now that we’ve gotten started, it seems much more reasonable – even enjoyable. More veggies and salads. Less dairy and meat. More “clean” snacks that don’t come out of a package or a box. (Much) less processed food. More tea. Less “low fat” food. More real food, full fat and all. Less sugar. Fewer carbs. More water. Less soda. Lots of quinoa and avocados.

And, of course, some bacon and chocolate and wine and Starbucks thrown in there, too – just maybe not in the same night. Except for birthdays and weekends with friends and evenings when the girls are in bed and asleep before 9:00 and there’s no hockey on and a fire in the fireplace; then, all bets are off.

RACK on!

Posted on January 8, 2015 by missemtoo

At our house, Christmas is Christmas because of the traditions. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without, among (many) other things, visits by Hermey (our house elf), eating popcorn while putting up the tree, receiving new pjs on Christmas Eve, or leaving a shot of whiskey for Santa alongside the cookies and milk (it’s cold on that ride, folks). I’ve always been someone who thrives on memories and ceremony and I was fortunate enough to have Nick agree to adopt nearly all of the Christmas customs that I celebrated growing up.

My girls have cottoned to these traditions just as strongly. If I forget something, or if I dare attempt to change even the smallest detail, Annie and Ella call me out immediately (“What happened?? These musical reindeer have always been in the dining room!”). (You know that we totally have musical reindeer.) While I’m all for honoring these established practices, sometimes it’s fun to try something new.

This year, I decided to try out two ideas: unwrapping and reading a Christmas book on every day of advent and practicing Random Acts of Christmas Kindness, or RACKs. (I’d love to claim that I thought up these schemes on my own but I totally stole them from my BFF Pinterest.) Given that I didn’t want to purchase 24 new holiday books, and given that we already have oodles of said books in the house, I opted to simply wrap two dozen of them and stack them up, ready to be opened each night.

Yes, I forgot to take a photo until after two weeks had passed. And yes, the books were stored on the dog kennel. We fancy up in here.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve done regular read-alouds with both girls, so I wasn’t entirely sure how it would go if I asked them to gather cozily on my bed and… unwrap… used Christmas books… But, to my delight, they seemed to really enjoy it – even look forward to it. Annie, especially (our bookworm), would bound into the bedroom each night and practically shimmer as she waited to see what the title would be, although both she and Ella exclaimed happily over favorites (“I love this one!”) and new (to them) titles (“I’ve never seen this one before!”). It was a quiet and lovely way to end each day; we’ll do it again for sure next year.

Cuddling in bed with our latest tome, with our previous volumes visible in the basket in the background…
Also, be forewarned: while you think it will be a thought-provoking, solemn holiday tale, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Match Girl might actually cause your children to have nightmares and imagine how it would feel to freeze to death. Oops.

If I were forced to choose just one new tradition to continue, however, it would actually be the RACKs. In contrast to the peaceful, sleep-inducing book tradition, the RACKs were vibrant and invigorating. The premise was really simple: find some way, any way, to be kind to another person. As I wrote on my Facebook page when I invited other friends to join the cause, they could be anything, “from really simple, non-monetary kindnesses (taking out the garbage, allowing someone to wedge in front of you in heavy traffic) to slightly bigger but not terribly complicated gestures (bringing a treat to a co-worker or the bus driver, giving a gift card to your postal worker, paying for coffee for the person behind you in line) to activities that require a bit more forethought (printing RACK cards and attaching candy canes to them and “bombing” a parking lot, taping microwave popcorn to a RedBox box) to things that are of a bit more significance monetarily (“sponsoring” a family for the holidays, donating to a food bank, etc.)… Whatever floats your boat and makes you happy because you think that it will make other people happy.
Anonymously. Randomly. Kindly.”

(One of my Jewish friends pointed out that these did not have to be only for Christmas, as they could be Random Acts of Chanukah Kindness, too. So awesome.)

The first official RACK that the girls and I did was to candy cane “bomb” the parking lot at their school so that the teachers would see the canes on their way out that afternoon. We invited Annie’s Girl Scout troop and their siblings to join us (see, I told you I’d rock my monthly meeting) and the response was super.

Girl Scouts preparing their canes…

We could hardly keep up with the kids as they raced from car to car, gleefully slipping notes under windshields and ecstatically squealing with delight at the mere thought that this might brighten their teachers’ day.

After that, Annie and Ella and I were on a roll. We did chores around the house for one another just because. (Even though I’d normally grumble significantly at the thought of putting the girls’ clothes away to spare their lazy bums, or at the idea of doing the dishes for Nick so he could watch the hockey game in peace, somehow it felt different – good. Really good.) They made cards and brought them into school. We took RACK cards and candy canes with us and distributed them often – to the guys who helped load our Christmas tree onto the car, to people in line at Starbucks. We taped dollars around the dollar store and chuckled imagining people finding them and absconding away with their bounty.

By far, though, our favorite experience was when we RACKed out at the post office. We ventured over one afternoon when the girls got home from school and, as expected, the line was at least 20 people deep; suffice it to say that no one was smiling. Ella and Annie each walked up to the counter, chose an employee, and simply stood there, waiting until the most recent customer had finished. Once there was a slight break in the action, they politely slipped in and handed over the cards and candy.

I can’t claim credit for this cute card, either – I found it here.

The postal workers looked stunned at first – but they quickly caught on and thanked the girls quite earnestly. The reaction from the other customers was instantaneous. I could see the grins creep over their faces, despite the packages at their feet and the seemingly interminable wait in line. The new twinkle in their eyes was unmistakable, that hint of happiness in the most unexpected of places.

We weren’t through, though, having brought with us three small collections of stamps along with other RACK cards. One at a time, we randomly chose customers in line and gave them the goodies. Their appreciative smiles were fantastic, but it was what happened next that was really incredible. As we were finishing, one of the recipients left her place in line to come over to us. She leaned in low, took my arm, and said, “My dad used to tell me to do something kind for someone else every single day. I’ve never forgotten that; it’s one of the most important lessons I learned. That’s what you’re teaching your daughters here today. Thanks for helping me to remember my dad, and to remember what’s most important. Your girls will never forget this.”

It took me at least two minutes to Photoshop my thumb to remove the hangnails and icky cuticles and leftover nail polish. Good thing I’m not vain or it might have been three.

Stunned, I started to pull Ella and Annie in to me to tell them how much their simple gesture had meant to this stranger when the final woman to whom they’d given the stamps called over to us to stop.

“Wait, wait! Don’t leave! Come here for a moment!”

Puzzled, we did as she asked, only to find ourselves waiting for at least five minutes (no exaggeration) while she looked through her purse. (It’s one thing to do a random act of kindness and then flee anonymously into the night. [Or afternoon.] It’s another to do said act of kindness and then hang around while people stare at you. Awkward.) At last, after telling us umpteen times how thoughtful we were, what a lovely gesture this was, she emerged with a five dollar bill.

“Here, I want you to have this.”

We briefly tried to protest, but she would have none of it.

“No, no. You keep it. You were so kind to me today – you made me feel so special. At the very least, go out and buy yourselves a couple of ice creams at McDonalds. Five dollars should do that, right? Go to McDonalds and treat yourselves. I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me.”

I finally decided that it would be extremely rude of us to turn away her act of kindness – after all, how would we have felt if we’d been rebuffed while performing any of our RACKs? – so we thanked her profusely and took off for the car.

The girls were dumbfounded. “Mom – we weren’t doing this to get paid!” they argued. “We actually made money in the post office today!” Still, they couldn’t stop grinning like hyenas all the way home – not because of their newfound riches but because, in their words, “Doing nice things for other people is the best feeling ever!”

And so it was. Every time I thought of the way the postal workers’ faces lit up, or the way the customers’ demeanor changed when they saw what Ella and Annie were up to, or how that woman spoke about her dad, or about the lady who felt so moved, she actually paid us – literally – a kindness in return, I felt like I was walking on air.

This is what Christmas is supposed to be, is it not? Doing unto others. Spreading joy. Sharing magic. The truest spirit of Christmas there is.

During the drive home, it was agreed that I would keep the five dollar bill (since, they wisely cautioned, it would probably be a bad idea to rip it in half). When I asked how they’d like to spend it, since we don’t really go to McDonalds all that often, their response was swift: “We really should spend it doing something nice for someone else, right Mom?”

We did exactly that.

Yep. We’ll definitely be doing RACKs again next Christmas. Can’t wait!*

———–

* fear not, we’re now on a mission to do RAKs throughout the year, so we won’t have to hold off until Christmas… but I have a feeling it will feel extra-awesome to do RACKs again when the time comes.

I want more

Posted on January 5, 2015 by missemtoo

I hadn’t planned to write a New Year’s post. (And, considering that it’s January 5th, I guess it really isn’t a New Year’s post anyway; go me!) I’ve got a couple of other posts already in the works and several more bouncing around in my head, so I’d planned to publish those before tackling anything new.

But, as anyone with ADHD – or anyone familiar with anyone with ADHD – knows, I’m nothing if not easily distracted (look, something shiny!), so after reading this lovely post that my friend Liza put up on her blog over the weekend and considering my own intentions for 2015 (the year in which I, like Liza and Nick and, oh, hundreds of our high school and college friends and acquaintances, will be turning 40 [I am so ready; bring it, four-oh!]), I realized that I might as well put them down on paper. Or screen. Close enough.

I really enjoy thinking up things that I’d like to change or do or wish for the coming year, but I always have a hard time actually completing my list. The problem lies with January, in that it immediately follows December. Y’all know what I mean – December is like summer. It doesn’t follow the rules of the rest of the year; schedules go out the window, everyone’s wearing funky clothes, you eat food that you’d never touch in April or October, and it smells really good. It’s a wonderland, to be sure, but also – like summer – disorienting. As such, I find myself imagining the changes I’d like to make for the following year but finding it difficult to consider how to go about accomplishing anything because – well, December.

If January and February could just switch places so we had a little more time between the hullabaloo of the holidays and beginning a new year, that would really be swell.

Anyway, as I considered Liza’s question – what are my intentions for this year? – I realized that these intentions (or resolutions or goals or aspirations or dreams or whatever you’d like to call them) are a little different than in the past. Many years, I’ve been all about cutting back — consuming fewer calories, wasting less time, not worrying as much. Those were noble and worthy goals, but this year, I’m going in a different direction.

To quote Ariel in The Little Mermaid, “But who cares? No big deal. I want more.”

I want 2015 to be about more.

More sleep. I’m really bad at this and it’s catching up with me. I deserve better.

More piano. After only a few good, quality scales, my hands are tired. Not cool. (I’d really, really like to learn Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, too, by the time I turn 40 in November, but don’t hold me to that…)

More forgiveness. For people I don’t agree with. For things I don’t understand. For myself, especially. I hold grudges against me like nobody’s business.

More tea. It’s good for me. I like it. Why not?

More letters and cards. Everyone loves snail mail. I just need to do it.

More gratitude. I am so tremendously fortunate; sometimes, I need to remind myself of that. Happiness and gratitude are so inextricably linked. I’m psyched for this one.

More communication. Whether it’s letting someone know that the package they sent arrived safely, responding promptly to an email or text – even if it’s just to say, “I’m not sure, let me get back to you!”, or finding the time to voice a concern or frustration with Nick instead of letting it stew, I tend to not be the greatest communicator. I want to get better. Friends, family, and marriage are worth it.

More books. For over a year, I lost my interest in books; they simply didn’t hold my attention anymore (some people say this happens when your’e grieving? Maybe?). But I miss books desperately, so I requested – and received! – more than a dozen for my birthday and Christmas. I want to read them all this year.

More courage. Making difficult decisions is hard for me. Standing up for myself is also tricky. But I’ve got this. I can do it.

More television. This may sound like the gluttonous opposite of a resolution, but stick with me here. I run around like a chicken with my head cut off from the moment I get up until the (very late – but soon to change!) moment I finally crawl into bed (see above: ADHD). Most of my evenings are a blur of house-straightening, email-writing, school-lunch-making, laundry-folding, to-do-list DOING. I watch very little television because I feel like I’m too busy to sit down and look at the TV. But that busyness is largely a choice. Yeah, there are things that can’t wait until tomorrow, but there are also those that can. If I allow myself to watch more TV – shows (hell, entire series) that I’ve been itching to get into but haven’t because of all of the DOING – that will mean that I’m cutting myself a break. And that, my friends, would be a really good thing. Plus also: maybe I’ll finally understand Downton Abbey and Orange is the New Black references. Bonus!

More cooking. I love it. It’s delicious. Enough said.

More Jesus. That sounds weird. I know. But I’ve been missing a spiritual, religious guiding force in my life – maybe for my whole life. I believe, but I don’t know exactly in what; not what I’ve seen at any church so far, save for the wonderful little one we attended when we lived in Westchester. I’m definitely a progressive, liberal, non-literal believer, someone who’s never read the entire Bible, who chose Jewish godparents for her firstborn (true story, and they’re awesome), who tends to find a lot of supposed “Christian” behavior to be as un-Christian as possible… but I think Jesus really had a lot going for him. I think, if I knew more about him – if I could relate instead of feeling judged or scolded from afar – I might really like what I learn and he might have a lot to teach me.
At the very least, I’ll get better at biblical trivia on Trivia Crack.

More listening. Especially to my kids. When they look back, I want them to say that their mom listened to them, that I heard them. Except when they’re whining. La la laaaaa.

More water. I’m basically dehydrated all the time. Which is dumb.

More giving. One of the best things we did this Christmas season was do small acts of kindness for others (post coming; I know you’re psyched). Seeing everyone’s faces light up felt unbelievably good – the mere anticipation of someone lighting up felt unbelievably good. I really want to give more this year.

So, I know. That’s a lot of things. But they’re really a collection of ideas – ideals – that I’ve been working toward for quite a while now; I just needed the kick-in-the-pants start of the year to formulate a real plan and figure out how to put it into action.

I know it’s typically gauche to ask for extra (after all, look what happened to Oliver), but in 2015 I want more – and, for once, I’m not afraid to say it.

My pioneer girlies, ushering in the new year. (Photo brazenly stolen from my mom…)

Double Digits

Posted on December 21, 2014 by missemtoo

I’d known it was coming. I’d known there was no turning back, no way to stop the inevitable, nothing that could be done to slow the steady march of time.

Ella was going to turn ten whether I liked it or not.

Brand new Eleanor squalling after being born.

For Annie, turning eight was a big deal; for me, not so much. As I mentioned, some ages are heralded almost universally (or, at least here in the States) as important milestones, with eight not being among them… so while Annie regarded her birthday as a major stepping stone, I viewed it merely as yet another birthday. Don’t get me wrong – every time my girls age a year, it makes my heart beat a little faster because I am blindsided by how unbelievably quickly the time is flying by. But eight, itself? Nah.

Ten, on the other hand, is one of those ages that seems to be met with fanfare. Or, if not fanfare, at least recognition. “Oh wow – double digits!” “Good grief, an entire decade!” “Ten years really makes you stop and think about how old you are, doesn’t it?”

Because ten years is really something, right? We, as humans, measure things in ten year blocks. The decade of discovery! The decade of bell bottoms! The album of the decade! When you’re asked to imagine yourself in the future, you’re usually asked where you think you’ll be in “Five, ten, twenty years…?” Because ten is a big deal. Ten marks progress (or lack thereof). Ten marks difference. Ten is enough time for something to have changed, to have happened. Magazines look back ten years, do entire retrospectives and “Where Are They Now!”s.

Because… ten.

When you’re born a week before Christmas, Santa hat photos are basically required.

Ten separates itself from its predecessors. The first double digit; you can no longer just squeeze it in – you need room for two. You can count by tens. You must purchase more than one candle for the cake.

Ten sounds older; it is treated as such. Whereas nine and seven and six were clearly young, with so much time and room to grow, ten begins something new. Ten is still a kid but with more responsibilities. What you could get away with at eight is hardly permissible now, because… ten. Ten is precariously close to thirteen, an age at which everything seems to change.

Ten carries with it an air of distinction. When you are ten – or eleven or twelve – you’ve entered into another realm, somewhere more mature and respected. You are one of the Big Kids now, allowed occasionally to sit at the adult table, able to maybe stay at home alone for a few minutes while dad takes the dog to the park and mom runs around the corner to drop off your sister.

When your child turns ten, people identify, because ten holds meaning. “Can you believe you’re old enough to have a ten year old?” they’ll ask, even though you were more than old enough to have a nine year old a mere 24 hours ago. This is a ridiculous question, of course, but it’s one you’ve asked yourself, so you let it slide. Because no, you can’t believe it – not that you’re old enough, but that ten whole years have passed. Ten years being a parent. Ten years that simultaneously went by in the blink of an eye but also seem like eternity. You remember your ten years-and-one-day ago self so distinctly, you can almost physically feel her — but then again, she seems like a wholly different person.

Ten years – especially ten years as a parent – will do that to you.

And yet…

You remember, at eighteen, seeing the movie premiere of The Lion King with your best friend and her family, a special trip into Manhattan to one of the Broadway theaters, and eating afterward at a restaurant where service was slow and your best friend’s younger sister was becoming restless, which you laughed about a little – her impatience and all – until someone pointed out, “Well, after all, she is only ten.” And that’s stuck with you ever since, because yes – only ten.

Special birthday treat: a lunch out with Mama at PF Chang’s.

Ten sounds older – ten is older – but ten is really not so old at all. Ten can mean spending twenty minutes picking out the perfect outfit, but it also means playing dress-up with your sister. When you’re ten, you walk home from school by yourself but still cannot reach the plates on the second shelf in the cupboard. Ten is math problems that stump your parents but also asking for a dollhouse for Christmas. At ten, you want to go to the mall but still prefer to hold your mom or dad’s hand when you’re there. Ten means staying up later but, alas, does not put an end to tantrums or whining (pity, that).

I had been viewing Eleanor’s birthday with trepidation, anticipating that it would be different somehow – but I am pleased to have discovered that, although she turned ten three days ago, nothing else has changed. She still calls me “Mama.” She still wants to cuddle and sit on my lap. She still leaves her clean laundry in the basket for days on end and yelps when I try to brush her hair. She is still the exact same girl she was four days ago, except now she has to take another fraction of a second to write her age.

Oh – and she can wear dangly earrings. Ten comes with fashion privileges, y’all.

Although I still cannot quite believe that ten whole years – a decade – have passed since she was born, I am fully at peace with having a ten year-old in our house — or, more specifically, with having this ten year-old in our house. Ella is remarkable and delightful (and stubborn) and thoughtful and funny and wise; she is a tremendous friend, a fantastic sister, and a most marvelous daughter. She even makes me think that maybe having teenagers won’t be so bad. (I KNOW, I know.)

Happiest tenth birthday, Eleanor Elizabeth. Thanks for showing me that growing older isn’t something to be afraid of, but something to celebrate. If you could slow down the growth just a little, that would be awesome – but if not, that’s okay, too, so long as you continue to take me with you.

Do you believe in magic?

Posted on December 16, 2014 by missemtoo

Every year, we visit the same Santa Claus. I don’t just mean the same place or the same general “Santa,” but actually the very same human being. We discovered him a good many years back when we went to get our Christmas tree at a local nursery and stumbled upon a Christmas Open House they were hosting.

2009. OH, FOR CUTE.

The great part of this is that “our” Santa actually remembers the girls, which makes them feel pretty fantastic. (It doesn’t hurt that Santa hands out little goodie bags filled with candy, a coloring book, and these awesome glasses that “react” to bright lights and make it seem as though snowflakes or gingerbread men are dancing around the bulbs of your Christmas tree. Side note: wearing these glasses while driving is not advised.) The best part of this – or so I thought – is that Ella and Annie believe, to their core, that this is THE Santa Claus, so they feel like they’re in on a secret and basically the coolest, luckiest girls on the planet.

(They will tell you, point-blank, that the other Santas – the ones at the mall or on TV at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – are merely helpers, perhaps associated with The Big Guy himself, or perhaps just actors dressing the part. This doesn’t bother them or make Santa less real; they understand that one man can only be in one place at a time, duh, so there simply have to be understudies and stunt doubles.)

This belief began because “our” Santa has a real beard, unlike the Santas they’d met previously. It was cemented because they’ve seen photo evidence of Santa delivering presents to our house on Christmas Eve and (coincidentally) The Real Mr. Claus looks remarkably like the Santa at our local nursery. I will fully accept responsibility, and declare myself guilty, for this deception because Annie and Ella’s belief in Santa – their desire for him to be real – is so strong and deep, I am willing to do almost anything to protect it; this is a ruse that I am absolutely willing to perpetuate. But as for the photo Santa resembling “our” Santa? MAMA GOT LUCKY THERE, FOLKS.
If you want to be ~~creepy~~ magical like me, check out this website.

When we arrived at the Christmas Open House on Saturday, our sole purpose was to see Santa; we’d already gotten our tree last week, so we only planned to stay for a few minutes, chat with St. Nick, grab the goodies, and leave. The moment we approached him at his bench, his face brightened and his smile beckoned them over.

“My gosh, how the two of you have grown!”

He invited them to sit beside him and they made a little small talk, during which Santa mentioned that “your elf has been filling me in – he says that you’ve been pretty good this year!” Ella snuck a glance my way, one that showed me she was thinking what I was: How the heck does Santa know for sure that we have an elf (on the shelf)? We do, but wouldn’t that kind of blow his cover if we didn’t?

Naturally, Jolly Old St. Nicholas asked the girls what they’d like for Christmas. Annie listed her three items (the agreed upon appropriate number) and then Ella had her turn, telling him she’d like “an electronic writing thing” (actually a Boogie Board; Santa said he’d talk to the elves about it), a bracelet maker, and an American Girl doll. He laughed at that one, asking her, “Didn’t you get one of those last year?” She laughed back and agreed that she had – to which he replied, “But you can never have too many of those, can you? You need another to keep the first one company!” – and then she shot me The Look again.

Because, yes, she had received an American Girl doll last year, but it seemed unlikely that “Santa” would have remembered such a thing 365 days, and countless visitors, later. It seemed especially unlikely because Ella had never mentioned it to Santa at all; Nick and I had given her that doll last Christmas.

Soon enough, their visit was over, hugs were had, goodie bags were doled out, and the girls were by my side again, with both of them immediately saying, “How did Santa know we got American Girl dolls last year??” To which I replied, very honestly, “I have no idea.”

They were silent for a moment, thinking, when they both looked up at the same time and said, “Then he really MUST be the real Santa!”

Still dazed from the mystical Santa visit, I noticed that the nursery was selling well-priced poinsettias and Christmas cactuses (cacti?), which we give to the girls’ teachers each year, so I sent them over to look at the plants and select the ones they wanted. Meanwhile, I approached the cashiers for a large box in which to put our purchases. As I waited, The Man With All The Toys left his post and came up to me.

“I just wanted to thank you for bringing your daughters here every year. It means a lot to me.”

Oh, my goodness. Thank YOU so much for remembering them!

“How could I not? They’re beautiful and polite, and I love seeing how they grow!”

Thank you very much. Visiting you is one of our Christmas traditions each year. I know they won’t believe forever, but for now, they do, and you make magic for them each time we’re here. Thank you for the magic.

“Well, I certainly try. We all need a little magic.”

I still have no idea how he knew that we have an elf on the shelf, or that Ella and Annie received American Girl dolls last year. It could have been dumb luck – it probably was dumb luck – but it was pretty uncanny. Whatever the reason, my girls came away from our visit floating on air, certain that Santa Claus himself had just given them a hug and told them that they’d been good this year.

And hey… you just never know.

Christmas magic, my friends, indeed. That is the very, very best part.

All Together in a Scattered Sort of Way

Finding humor in even the most inappropriate places

Category Archives: good life